Florida has more kinds of freshwater turtle than almost anywhere on Earth, and its ditches hide salamanders as long as your arm. Pictured: a gopher tortoise burrow, home to hundreds of other species.
| Turtle | Tortoise | Terrapin | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lives | Mostly in water | On land only | Brackish water: salt marsh and mangrove |
| Feet | Webbed or flippers | Stumpy, elephant-like | Webbed |
| Shell | Often flatter, streamlined | High dome | Medium |
| Example | Snapping turtle, softshell, sea turtles | Gopher tortoise, Aldabra giant tortoise | Diamondback terrapin |
All are turtles in the scientific sense (order Testudines); "turtle", "tortoise" and "terrapin" are everyday names that vary by country.
A turtle's shell is part of its body: it grows from its ribs and backbone, so it can never take it off. When danger comes, most turtles pull in their head and legs and the shell keeps them safe, like a helmet all over.
Florida's 2009 rule (FWC) ended commercial harvest of wild freshwater turtles, banned taking alligator snappers and their look-alikes, and limited people to one turtle a day; check FWC for the current rule. The Suwannee alligator snapping turtle, named as its own species in 2014, was listed as federally threatened in 2024.
A leathery, pancake-flat shell for hiding in sand, a snorkel nose for breathing from the bottom, and skin and throat linings that take oxygen from the water.
A gopher tortoise digs burrows up to about 3 m deep and 12 m long (est.) in sandy uplands. More than 350 other species use them (FWC): eastern indigo snakes, gopher frogs, burrowing owls, Florida mice, and many insects found nowhere else. Remove the tortoise and much of the community goes too: a keystone species.
It is listed as threatened in Florida; developers must get an FWC permit to relocate tortoises before building. Never move one yourself.
In most turtles, the temperature of the nest, not chromosomes, decides each hatchling's sex: in sea turtles warm sand gives mostly females, cool sand mostly males. This is temperature-dependent sex determination; warming beaches are tipping some nests heavily female.
Turtles can carry Salmonella without looking sick. The U.S. has banned selling turtles under 4 inches since 1975, because small turtles were often given to children; the CDC still traces outbreaks to pet turtles. Wash hands after touching any reptile or amphibian.
Red-eared sliders, the most traded turtle on Earth, now live wild on every continent but Antarctica. Florida lists them as a Conditional species. Never release a pet turtle; FWC's Exotic Pet Amnesty takes unwanted pets.
Loggerheads nest on Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key from May to October; volunteers mark nests each morning. Lights left on near the beach lure hatchlings away from the sea. The green turtle moved from Endangered to Least Concern on the IUCN Red List in October 2025, though some populations are still threatened.
Next door: Sea lab: Florida waters · Reptile house · Natural history: reptile room
The stages light up in turn; under reduced motion they all show at once.
Every newt is a salamander. "Newt" usually means a salamander in the family Salamandridae, with rough, drier skin, that spends its adult life in water. The eastern newt has three stages: water larva, a bright orange land stage called the red eft (poisonous to predators), and a green water adult.
Salamanders can regrow lost legs, tails, parts of the eye and even heart tissue. At a wound, cells form a bud called a blastema that rebuilds the missing part in the right pattern. The axolotl is the lab favorite, and scientists hope to learn why mammals cannot do the same.
The third group of amphibians, after frogs and salamanders: legless burrowers that look like earthworms, living in the tropics. Some mothers feed their young on a special layer of their own skin.
Sirens and amphiumas live in Florida ditches and marshes. Greater sirens have only front legs and feathery gills and can wait out a drought sealed in a mucus cocoon; amphiumas have four tiny two-toed legs. The frosted flatwoods salamander of panhandle pine flatwoods is federally threatened, and the reticulated flatwoods salamander endangered.
About 41 percent of amphibian species are threatened with extinction, the highest share of any vertebrate group (IUCN Global Amphibian Assessment, 2023). Habitat loss is the biggest cause. Disease is next: the chytrid fungus Bd (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis), identified in 1998, has driven declines in hundreds of frog species and some extinctions; its cousin Bsal (B. salamandrivorans), described in 2013, kills salamanders in Europe and has not yet been found in the wild in North America. The U.S. restricts imports of 201 salamander species to keep Bsal out (USFWS, 2016). Zoos keep "amphibian arks" of species that cannot yet survive in the wild.
Cane toads, released in Florida in the 1930s-50s for pest control and by the pet trade, ooze a poison from glands behind the eyes that can kill a dog that bites one: rinse the dog's mouth from the side with a hose and call a vet. Cuban treefrogs eat native frogs and clog drains and power boxes; FWC asks Floridians to report them.
Next door: Natural history: amphibian room · Reptile house (axolotls, poison frogs)
Drawer: Zoo: Turtles and salamanders QR J2PEQP
Quiz: Turtles and salamanders quiz · 10 questions
Next door: Reptile house · Natural history: reptile room · Natural history: amphibian room · Sea lab
Checked November 2026. Figures marked (est.) are estimates; statuses are flagged in the catalog for re-checking against the live IUCN Red List before acceptance.
